Problems of Method and Methodology in Lifestyle Research

Lifestyle research is discussed in its context of discovery, justification and application from a methodological point of view. Lifestyles are defined as structures of limited range based on the ethics and aesthetics of everyday life. After this, problems of method are depicted with respect to the conception and measurement, the empirical construction as well as the description and interpretation of lifestyles. In this context, exploratory and confirmatory research approaches are presented and the advantages and problems of cluster analysis, correspondence analysis and latent class analysis are discussed at length. While cluster and correspondence analysis prove to be highly useful for exploratory purposes, latent class analysis and regression methods should be preferred for theory testing. A special section is devoted to time comparisons of lifestyles. Further considerations pertain to the relationships of qualitative and quantitative as well as verbal and nonverbal data collection methods. The arguments are illustrated with data from German media research.